Autonomous vehicles, such as the type configured to transport passengers in an urban environment, may encounter many situations in which an autonomous vehicle ought to alert persons, vehicles, and the like, of the presence of the vehicle in order to avert a potential collision or an approach of the vehicle within an unsafe distance of an external object, such as a pedestrian or other vehicles, for example.
Moreover, autonomous vehicles may share the road with other vehicles and persons. However, autonomous vehicles may be difficult to detect due to low levels of emitted noise from an electric and/or hybrid propulsion system (e.g., lack of combustion engine noise and/or lower levels of tire noise).
As one example, in a conventional vehicle piloted by a human being, a pedestrian who crosses the road in front of the vehicle may be jaywalking or may not be paying attention to the approach of the vehicle. In some scenarios, the driver of the vehicle may decide to use the vehicle's headlights (e.g., flashing the high beam headlights) to visually gain the attention of the pedestrian and/or to alert the pedestrian of the vehicles approach. However, the pedestrian may perceive the flashing head lights as being intended for another vehicle and may ignore the head light flashing. Furthermore, the flashing of the headlights may confuse other drivers as they may believe the headlights are being flashed at them.
Therefore, in situations where the autonomous vehicle intends to issue a visual alert, a targeted and/or less confusing visual alert may be desirable. Accordingly, there is a need for systems, apparatus and methods for implementing visual alerts from robotic vehicles.
Although the above-described drawings depict various examples of the invention, the invention is not limited by the depicted examples. It is to be understood that, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Also, it is understood that the drawings are not necessarily to scale.